This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

29 comments:

Poppy was transferred to the leading children's hospital in London for specialist care after she was born three months early on Christmas Eve last year, in Basildon, Essex.

But she died after a "domino effect" of mistakes, an inquest was told.

Rebecca Tite, a trainee nurse, who had spent just three weeks in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, set up a machine supplying her with glucose incorrectly, flooding her body with the solution.

The levels of glucose in Poppy's blood rose to 20 times the maximum level they should have been, causing ''devastating effects'' to her body, St Pancras Coroner's Court in central London heard.

The machine that nurses would have preferred to use to give Poppy glucose would have prevented an accidental overdose being given to her, the inquest heard.

But the equipment was not available after being taken away to help threat a five-year-old boy suffering from meningitis who had needed it urgently.

US government report recommends blocking popular websites during pandemic flu outbreak (NaturalNews)

The US government has issued a new report that recommends blocking access to popular websites during a pandemic outbreak in order to preserve internet bandwidth for investors, day traders and securities clearing house operations.

The concern is that a pandemic would cause too many people to stay at home and download YouTube videos and porn, hogging all the internet bandwidth and blocking throughput for investment activities, thereby causing a stock market meltdown.

This isn't an April Fool's joke. It's all based on a public report issued by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), available from their website at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d108.pdf

A White House official told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that the Obama administration's commitment to donate 10 percent of the U.S. supply of H1N1 vaccine to other countries will not necessarily begin after 40 million doses are procured, as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com and the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week.

On Saturday, three days after Sebelius made her remarks about the U.S. donating some of its vaccine to foreign countries, President Obama declared the H1N1 epidemic a national emergency.

Calling Sebelius’ remarks “a slight miscommunication,” the White House official told CNSNews.com that the 40-million dose figure that Sebelius cited as the trigger-point at which U.S. donations of vaccine to foreign countries would begin refers to the estimate of needed vaccines for the most at-risk population in the United States.

“It’s the minimal requirement for considering when the timing will be right,” to begin international donations, the official said, adding that the most important consideration is the vaccine supply in the United States.

A Texas emergency room doctor has a message for the rest of the country: illegal aliens are destroying the medical care delivery system in his part of south Texas.

Dr. Antonio Falcon cited diseases and conditions such as tuberculosis diabetes obesity and swine flu, brought by illegals, as major threats to America’s border hospitals because illegals refuse to pay for medical care.

Dr. Falcon says the problem started with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), the federal law compelling hospitals to treat anyone in medical emergencies without regard to the patient’s ability to pay.

Falcon started his practice in 1980 and has seen the terrible results of EMTALA. In the early 1980’s Mexicans were usually among the best paying patients in border hospitals because the system required up front payments.

Today the same population offers only smiles and empty palms in return for their care. Now the influx of those willing to sneak into America to steal medical services is taking its toll.

Dangerous diseases

If illegals aren’t specifically excluded from any health care legislation Dr. Falcon foresees the effect on border hospitals being the same as forcing them to continue operating with 35% funding cuts.

The problems involved in protecting Americans from the onslaught of illegals goes well beyond merely providing emergency room care and obstetrics. One of the consistently under reported stories about illegals is the shocking array of exotic and deadly diseases they bring with them.

Among the worst is Chagas Disease a South and Central American parasitic illness that causes heart failure in million of people. Unknown here ten years ago, Chagas is now found in 23 states.

Incredibly Illegals have reintroduced Leprosy in America and there are now 7000 lepers in our country.

10 Facts Every American Should Know About Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-Page Gov't Takeover of Health.

Members of Congress and the American people are just beginning to look at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 1,990-page government takeover of health care, but it’s already becoming clear just how costly and unsustainable this proposal is.

From higher taxes on middle-class families to job-killing mandates on small businesses to cuts in Medicare benefits for seniors, here are 10 facts every American should know about Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990-page government takeover of health care:

I laugh whenever I read that passing healthcare legislation will force doctors to leave the medical profession. What a joke! What are these people going to do, open a Subway shop? maybe franchise a Mailboxes etc? Come on, let's get serious.So instead of making $300,000 per year they'll make $250,000. Boo Hoo Hoo

Let me get this straight.We’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

What possibly could go wrong?Pelosi Health Care Bill pages 1219-1246–

Just these 27 pages are enough to see what this bill is all about. I bet you will agree. PLEASE take time to read these 27 pages.

Anyone who reads these pages and still says this bill isn’t about the government takeover of health care is either a fool or a liar.

It’s just that simple.

* * * Today the Fraser Institute, one of Canada’s leading economic think-tanks, released the 19th edition of its annual report Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.

The hospital waiting list survey measures median waiting times to document the degree to which queues for visits to specialists and for diagnostic and surgical procedures are used to control health care expenditures.

The report measures the wait times between referral by a general practitioner and consultation with a specialist, the times between seeing the specialist and receiving treatment, and the total wait times from GP referral to treatment.

The report finds that Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment are enduring a median wait time of 16.1 weeks, roughly the same delay they experienced in 2000-2001, even though governments have made substantial increases in health care spending since then.

The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose and activities described in clause (iii). (emphasis added)

According to the requirements found in clause (ii):

The organization has demonstrated experience working with and providing assistance to a broad range of individuals and entities to reduce teen pregnancy.

The organization is research-based and has comprehensive knowledge and data about teen pregnancy prevention strategies.

According to Rita Diller, national director for STOP Planned Parenthood, there is only one “nationally recognized” organization that fits the bill – Planned Parenthood.

Guillermo Denis Gonzalez was released from prison in Florida in 2004 after serving 12 years for murder. By the end of 2006, he owned a health care business officially licensed by Medicare.

This August, the Miami Herald reported that Gonzalez pled guilty to filing $586,953 in phony Medicare claims for supplies that were never given to any actual patients -- but this was only after he was arrested for murdering and dismembering another victim, to which he also confessed.

While it's shocking that government policing efforts are so lax for Medicare that even a convicted murderer can be granted a license to sell equipment and file claims, Gonzalez is actually a small player compared to other cheats.

Last June, for instance, the Washington Post ran a story about a high school dropout who scammed $105 million from the federal government by filing 140,000 fraudulent Medicare claims, buying herself a Mercedes-Benz and two condominiums with a portion of the proceeds.

The rampant fraud in existing government health care programs is nothing new, but the problem warrants increased attention given recent reports of growing momentum behind Democrats' push to create a new government-run program modeled after Medicare.

Obama care will also mandate increased affirmative action admissions to medical schools and a radical increase in affirmative action hiring. What that means is that in addition to health care being run by an incompetent, evil, left-wing bureaucracy we'll be forced to see doctors who are low-IQ, third-world savages. Obama care is simply a racist power and money grab that will take from Whites and transfer to non-whites. If you are White, Obama and his allies are your deadly enemies.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are challenging an assertion by House leaders that their new health-care package comes in under President Obama's spending limit of $900 billion over the next decade.

The true cost of the measure, the GOP argues, is more than $1 trillion. A House leadership aide dismissed the charge as "GOP spin." But, in this case, the spin is essentially true.

According to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, expanding coverage to an additional 36 million Americans would cost $1.055 trillion over the next decade under the House plan, counting tax breaks for small businesses, subsidies for low- and moderate-income families, and the largest expansion of Medicaid since its inception more than 40 years ago.

House leaders prefer to emphasize a different number: the net cost of expanding coverage. That's $1.055 trillion minus money that would be raised from penalties on people who failed to buy insurance and employers that failed to offer it.

Those adjustments would bring the cost down to $894 billion over 10 years, just under Obama's limit...

Still, Democrats have a bit of a consistency problem: Democratic leaders in the Senate use the gross cost of expanding coverage.

If they switched to House math, the price tag of a bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee this month would be $518 billion -- nearly $400 billion less than the House bill.

Of Course… Pelosi’s Bill Will Punish States Who Pass Tort ReformFriday,(GatewayPundit)

It figures. The Pelosi Plan will punish states that limit trial lawyers’ winnings.

Capital Confidential reported this at Big Government:

Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.

A new poll by CNSNews reported that women prefer having their own private insurance plan over a government-sponsored plan by a 2-1 margin.

Nearly two-thirds of American women would rather have private health-care insurance than a government-run plan, according to a poll released Thursday by the Independent Women’s Forum.

The same proportion, two-thirds, also said Congress should not rush to pass a health-care bill.

By a margin of 64 percent to 27 percent, women agreed they “would rather have private health insurance than a government-run health insurance plan,” according to the poll.

The random- digit-dial telephone survey, which was conducted by pollster Kellyanne Conway, surveyed 800 women from across the country from Oct. 19-25.

“In this poll we treat women like grownups,” said Conway, a Republican and president of the polling company. “We don’t ask them just about babies and families, although we cover those issues. We ask them about real world economics, real tradeoffs and the real costs associated with our health-care system.”

The poll found that concern over the economy (39 percent) topped health care as women’s main concern.

The incessant stream of lies out of the Democrats is amazing. This is the New York Times flat out saying that Pelosi tried to pull one over on us on the cost of her bill. Throughout Thursday, news accounts, including our own, focused on $894 billion, the total cost given out by aides to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, before the official cost analysis was released by the Congressional Budget Office. But a closer look at the budget office report suggests that the number everyone should have reported was $1.055 trillion, which is the gross cost of the insurance coverage...

I'm sorry to see that this sight has taken on a veil of hatred and misinformation concerning a legitimate crisis impacting our country. How 'bout some workable solutions to correct this situation as opposed to spewing more venom?

NHS bosses have apologised to a patient in Manchester who was locked in an ambulance for five hours after the driver went home and forgot about him.

The man, 65, was stranded at Sharston ambulance station, Wythenshawe, after being collected by an ambulance from Manchester Royal Infirmary.

The alarm was raised when he failed to return to the care home where he lives.

The North West Ambulance Service said an inquiry had begun and a staff member "was suspended with immediate effect".

The incident happened on Tuesday when the patient was collected from the hospital at 1915 GMT.

Instead of being returned to the care home, he was driven back to the ambulance station where he was left until 0100 GMT.

“ This has never happened before and it will never happen again ” North West Ambulance Service spokesman The ambulance service said it received a call from the care home at 2030 GMT and later sent other staff to the station to collect the patient's paperwork to see where the man had been taken, when he was discovered.

A spokesman for the ambulance service said: "We are very sorry this incident took place.

9:06.. here is a solution for you. Get off your ass and provide for yourself. Don't depend on others to take care of you. If you don't have the money and can't afford children, don't have them. If you can't afford a house, don't take out a loan you can't repay. If you spend your time in high school drinking beer and smoking dope, don't expect the people who actually worked and went to college, to support your piss poor choices and decisions.

There is no health care crisis in this country. A lie manufactured by the democrats in order to get more power. It is all about political power.

You have no "right" to have someone else pay for your health care. You have no "right" to force others to pay for your lousy judgment, stupidity or laziness. You only have a right to compete, in a fair manner, for the benefits of a free society.

While you might have the right to free speech, you have no right to force me to buy you a podium. You might have a right to own a firearm, but you have no right to force me to buy you a Colt .45 automatic pistol.

Get the message? Even if you have a right to health care all that means is that society can not prevent you from getting health care. It, in no way, mandates that others provide you with health care.

After a pattern of attacking Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, on a nightly basis, one of the strategies is becoming apparent - MSNBC is in need of a boogeyman to give a face to the opposition of these radical steps being undertaken to fundamentally change health care in the United States.

So rather than attack where the opposition is wrong on a policy level, MSNBC "Countdown" fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell is going to apply one of the tactics from Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" to promote a dramatic shift in the U.S. health care system - "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

"In our number five story on the countdown tonight, the Congressional Budget Office finds that it would leave 18 million people uninsured and the government-run health insurance plan will probably charge consumers premiums that are quote, ‘Somewhat higher, higher than average premiums for the private plans,' end quote," O'Donnell said. "This is a devastating conclusion for a plan being sold not just as a low-cost option for consumers, especially poor consumers, but as somehow driving private insurance premiums lower."

CBO DIRECTOR DOUGLAS ELMENDORF: “Our Judgment Is That That Piece Of The Legislation Would Raise Insurance Premiums.” (Finance Committee, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 9/22/09)

New Government Regulations: “[P]remiums in the new insurance exchanges would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market…” (CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, Letter To Sen. Baucus, P. 6, 9/22/09)

New Taxes On Medical Devices, Prescription Drugs And Clinical Labs: “Those projected premium amounts include the effect of the fees that would be imposed under the proposal on manufacturers and importers of brand name drugs and medical devices, on health insurance providers, and on clinical laboratories.

Those fees would increase costs for the affected firms, which would be passed on to purchasers and ultimately would raise insurance fees by a corresponding amount.” (Doug Elmendorf, “CBO’s Analysis Of Premiums Under The Chairman’s Mark Of The America’s Healthy Future Act,” CBO Blog, 9/23/09)

New Taxes On High Cost Insurance Plans: “The imposition of the excise tax on insurers can be expected to lead health insurance providers and consumers to take measures to minimize their burden from the tax.

As insurers pass along the cost to the consumer by increasing price, the cost of employer provided insurance will increase.” (“Memorandum: Revenue Estimate,” Joint Committee on Taxation, 9/29/09)

AP: “The nation’s medical costs will keep spiraling upward even faster than they are now under Democratic legislation pending in the House, a report from government economic experts concluded…” (“US Health Care Tab Would Grow Under Overhaul,” AP, 10/21/09)

CBO ON SENATE FINANCE PROPOSAL: Costs Will Grow. “The gross cost of the coverage expansions, consisting of exchange subsidies, the net costs of expanded eligibility for Medicaid, and tax credits for employers: Those provisions have an estimated cost of $180 billion in 2019, and that cost is growing at about 8 percent per year toward the end of the 10-year budget window.” (CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, Letter to Sen. Baucus, P. 10, 10/7/09)

CONSISTENT WITH INDEPENDENT STUDIES

OLIVER WYMAN STUDY: “Average premiums for small employers will increase: Under reform, small employers will experience premium increases as a result of rating rule changes and minimum benefit requirements.” (Oliver Wyman, “Insurance Reforms Must Include A Strong Individual Mandate And Oth

er Key Provisions To Ensure Affordability,” P.3, 10/14/09)

PRICEWATERHOUSE COOPERS STUDY: “There are four provisi ons included in the Senate Finance Committee proposal that could increase private health insurance premiums above the levels projected under current law.” (PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Potential Impact Of Health Reform On The Cost Of Private Health Insurance Coverage,” P.3, 10/11/09)

HAY GROUP STUDY: “Our model results show significantly higher premiums and lower coverage levels than for the most recent version of the Senate Finance Committee bill than our original assumptions would have produced.” (Hay Group, “Impact Of Proposed Senate Finance Committee Health Care Reform Bill On The Nongroup Market,” P.1, 10/5/09)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a health care reform bill that allegedly would cost the federal government less than previous House Democratic plans. But it would cost states more.

The previous House bill would have made families earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level eligible for Medicaid, which states partially fund. New Hampshire pays 50 percent of its Medicaid costs. That would have cost states an additional $33 billion.

Under Pelosi's bill, families earning up to 150 percent of the poverty level are to be covered by Medicaid! That huge increase would have a disastrous effect on New Hampshire's budget.

This bill ought to draw an automatic "no" vote from Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes. It would explode the already out-of-balance New Hampshire state budget and almost certainly result in a state income or sales tax. But Shea-Porter was on the stage with Nancy Pelosi, beaming with delight, when the speaker unveiled the plan. Maybe Hodes and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen will have more sense than to support this budget buster.

As 60 Minutes reported last week, Medicare fraud is rampant and has now replaced the cocaine (ahem) business as the major criminal activity in South Florida. Both 60 Minutes and the Washington Post report that Medicare fraud now costs American taxpayers roughly $60 billion a year. That may sound like a lot of money, but surely it pales next to the extraordinary profits of private insurance companies, right?

Well, let's see.... Last year, the profits of the ten largest insurance companies in America were just over $8 billion -- combined. No single insurance company made even five percent of what Medicare reportedly loses in fraud.

McClatchy Stock Performance

Shop at Amazon

Finalist - Best Up And Coming Blog

McClatchy Watch is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.